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Research and Recovery

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Yesterday was the first day my knee felt almost normal since I torqued it last Saturday. It still went out a few times when I forgot to baby it, but I could mostly get around without pain. Huge improvement. So, of course, tomorrow I have to plant more than 100 bulbs in the garden. :-( Why do I have a feeling I’ll be moaning and groaning again? It’ll pay off next spring when the flowers bloom, I know that, but it’s going to be tough to appreciate that when I’m hobbling again. Sigh.

I ordered a USB wireless thingy on Thursday. Yes, I’m sure that’s the technical term. :-) I have a laptop without wireless capability, so I can plug it in, connect to my network, and update the thing. There were two offered on Woot yesterday (they were having a Woot-off), but both times it sold out before I could buy one, damn it. I checked eBay, but the fact that so many of the sellers were in Hong Kong made me a little uneasy. I decided to order from Best Buy instead and they had free shipping which always makes me happy. I loathe paying for shipping. :-)

A couple of DVDs that I ordered for research arrived, but I’ve been reading through copy edits (I’m on manuscript page 241 now) and haven’t had the time to watch and pay attention to them. I have a few more on order. I also have a library book I need to read for research on another project. I’m not quite sure when I’m going to squeeze that in.

And last, but certainly not least, my dad patched the door seal today and there were no bugs on my foyer floor! Hurrah!

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Cubs Win! Cubs Win!

Saturday, September 29th, 2007



I usually save the happy dancing Hobbes for when I finish a manuscript and ship it off to my editor, but I had to pull him out today. Last night the Cubs clinched the NL Central Division!!! Hurrah!!!

And now for the big question: Where do you find Halloween potpourri? I have this really cool cauldron and I used to have some orange and black potpourri with a spicy scent to it that I poured in it, but I used that up last year and the store I bought it from is out of business. Not being a shopper, I have no idea where I’d go to buy more. Anyone have some hints?

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My Exciting Wednesday

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

Okay, so I ran into one glitch on the new network hook up. I can’t get any email to send off my laptop now unless I use my cable internet account. I totally don’t get this since I’ve been sending messages from my desktop computer off my old email addresses and the settings are exactly the same. I even wrote it all down just in case my memory was faulty. This is going to be a pain until I can figure it out. I don’t want to change my email addresses so that means I have to get it to work. Anyway, I got tired and gave up, but today is another day.

So what happened on Wednesday that was so exciting? Besides the high speed on my laptop, I mean. :-) After work, I went to an used office furniture place and got my five drawer lateral filing cabinet! I’ve been wanting one of those for like a year now, and while it’s a little banged up, it was also 1/3 the cost of a new one. I can live with the adhesive residue on the exterior for that kind of savings.

Then, while I was there, I spotted used desk chairs. The really nice ergonomic kind! I’ve been sitting on a office chair from probably the 1960′s, long before anyone had heard of the word ergonomic. I would literally hobble after I’d been sitting in it for any length of time. The chair was twice the cost of the cabinet, but once I get it all set up for me, it’ll be worth it. Plus, now I rolled the $5 chair into the scrapbook room. :-) Now I can be hobbled if I do crafts. Anyway, if I’d bought it new, the guy said it would have been like $1000. =8-O Used is a good thing.

I also got my really cool chipboard letters and figures yesterday and my card making kit. How cool is that? With a chair, a cutter, and those super fabulous letters, I seriously need to get scrapbooking.

And yes, there was writing done as well. I finally felt as if I made some good progress yesterday during lunch. Of course, I got very little done after all the running around and installing that I did, but I’m hopeful that at lunch today, I’ll start chugging right along again.

Originally, I’d planned to talk about the joys of research today, but I guess I’ll try to remember to blog about that tomorrow.

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Ahhh, Saturday

Saturday, August 18th, 2007

It’s supposed to rain here most of the day today, making it the perfect morning to sleep in. Which I did. :-) It’s also going to be a perfect day to work on the synopsis because there’ll be no siren call from the outdoors. Not that I’m exactly into the great outdoors and all, but sitting out on the deck on a nice, sunny day is always tempting.

Anyway, I talked to one of the guys at work yesterday about setting up a network in my house and he made it sound so easy, I decided I could hook it up myself. Since only my desktop with the hugely uncomfortable chair (think circa 1958 before the word “ergonomics” had been invented and that’ll give you an idea how crippling it is to sit in it for any length of time) has the high speed internet connection, I’ve fallen behind on a lot of things–like replying to comments. It takes forever for any website to pull up on dial up (boy, did I get spoiled fast!) and I don’t have the patience to wait. Which means I’m hugely behind sometimes. Okay, most of the time. But once I have high speed on my laptop, I’m sure I’ll be better.

I’d kind of been resisting networking because I write on my laptop, and right now, with only dial up on this computer, I’m not tempted to play online. Of course, there’s still Hearts and Mah Jong, but that’s another story. I kept telling myself that setting up the security on the network would be difficult and I didn’t feel like hiring anyone to come in and do it for me right now. My coworker blew that one out of the water. I’ve been reading articles about routers and networking and doing some pricing. Hopefully, I’ll be up and running before Labor Day.

In other shopping news, the shoes I ordered came. OMG, I think I fell in love with a new brand of shoes. Skechers! I have to exchange the pair I bought for a smaller size, but even with the shoe slightly too big, these were like the most comfortable things I’ve had on in forever and they are major cute! In fact, they’re so comfortable, I went online to see if there were other styles I wanted. I found a bunch and bookmarked them for purchase later.

Does everyone know about this brand but me? I’m a convert. :-) Of course, I guess I should save my excitement until I’ve worn them for a full day and not just a few turns around the house, but they’re just like wearing tennis shoes, just more stylish. :-) They have a few dress shoes (very few), but they have a really good selection on casual and tennis shoes. Try a pair on if you have a chance.

And no, this is not a paid endorsement. It’s just that I wish someone had told me about this brand before I stumbled on them on my own. Yes, I’m a total shoe slut. My walk-in closet has the shelving filled with shoes, but you can never own too many pair. :-) You never know when you’re going to need the kelly green wedge-heels.

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Craft Day

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

It was Craft Fair day yesterday on QVC. Need I say more? If I was smart, I wouldn’t because it’s downright embarrassing how many things I bought. I knew I was in trouble when I woke up yesterday morning and saw the Today’s Special Value. It was a Silhouette cutting machine that hooks up to the computer and will cut out any true type font (letters or shapes) that you have. I’m a font slut, so I have many, many true type fonts. I’d been eyeing the Wishblade ever since I heard of it and the Silhouette is the same kind of machine. I was determined not to order. Absolutely not. I could wait. And I did.

About three hours.

Then in the afternoon came the sparkly 687 piece assorted theme rub-ons. Those looked way cool and I don’t have any rub-ons. Clearly, I needed some.

I vowed I was done shopping for the day. That was it; I’d spent enough money. But there wasn’t any baseball on last night. Nobody was televised. I had to watch something while I worked on the synopsis for my proposal, right? And I tend to default to QVC because I can watch without needing to pay strict attention. That’s when I saw the fall and winter themed 600+ piece self-adhesive chipboard kits. I would have been fine if the letters hadn’t been so cute. I caved again.

This was it, though. I was absolutely, positively 100% finished shopping. But as I was working, I saw this card making kit. They hadn’t even demonstrated it yet when I ordered, just previewed it. I love homemade cards with embellishments. Now granted, the cards I have were made by someone else, but come on, I can do this, too! I think.

See? This is why ESPN, TBS and WGN need to show more baseball! I only get in trouble like this when there aren’t any games on, and with the Twins playing on the west coast tonight, I was at the mercy of QVC. And they had none. They kept showing irresistible item after irresistible item. Only my incredible willpower (STOP LAUGHING!) kept the damage from being much worse.

In other news, my dad found my wind spinner at the bottom of the shepherd’s hook so I didn’t lose it. He also found my rain gutter extension in my neighbor’s yard. Those were two rough storms Monday night. Final total on the number of Twin Cities residents without power was something around 55,000. I’m so happy not to be one of them. Of course, it might be cheaper if I had been. No television.

Another flower bloomed yesterday too, bringing my total back up to five, although I think two will be losing their petals shortly. They just don’t last long enough.

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No Sign of Rain

Friday, August 10th, 2007

For reasons known only to my dad, he decided last night was a good night to resume watering the lawn. Keep in mind that the grass is yellow at this point because we’re in a horrible drought and we gave up on the sprinkling about 2 weeks ago since it was impossible to keep up. But last night, I hear the water spigot and look outside. My dad was over arranging the hoses. When I get home this afternoon, I’ll have to remember to look and see if it did any good or if the grass is still as yellow as it was.

I have a brand new lily! It bloomed sometime yesterday and I saw it when I got home from work. I would have taken a picture of it, too, although it’s unlikely I would have subjected any of you to it, but it was too close to the chicken wire to get any decent shots. But I have two flowers in my tree ring and the promise of more to come! I can’t wait for the Sumatra Lily to bloom–that’s a ways a way from the looks of things, though.

And to round out my day, I shoe shopped online. I’d been flipping around while I waited for the 6pm news and landed on QVC. No, I didn’t buy shoes from them, but that had some cute stuff from Skechers on. Whenever I see shoes on QVC that I like, I always check online because Zappos and Shoebuy have free shipping and free return shipping. And as luck would have it, Shoebuy had sent me an email coupon yesterday. Since you saved $5 with one pair and $15 with two pair, I made sure I found two pairs of shoes I liked. :-) I know, I know. But two pair really were the best deal. Besides, I’m picky enough about shoes that the odds of my keeping both pair are about zilch. Actually, the odds of my keeping either pair aren’t that good. This is why I try not to buy shoes online, but it’s oh-so-tempting–especially since I hate shopping.

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Living Dangerously

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Yes, I overslept again. I think that makes every day this week? I did try to go to bed early last night, but unfortunately, about the time I was thinking that, I discovered HSN had a scrapbook festival going on. I know, normally I am a QVC girl, but hey, it’s scrapbooking! Yes, I bought something. Sigh. It’s called a Crop-a-Dile and it’s for putting eyelets in your pages without having to bang with a hammer. I’ve never used eyelets before, but I’m sure that’s only because I didn’t have the proper tool. ;-)

Anyway, by the time I logged off the computer and everything and made it to bed, it was much later than I’d hoped. This oversleeping thing is really getting old. I’m so used to doing stuff in the morning, like blogging and answering email, and losing this time means finding other parts of the day where I can do these things. That’s not always easy.

I tried to sit out on the deck yesterday afternoon when I got home from the EDJ, but that didn’t work out real well for me. As I’m sitting there, a wasp came to visit. I went inside, got my handy dandy wasp-killing spray and went back out. Fortunately, he was gone. For a while. Yes, I ended up shooting my weapon. Twice.

I thought I’d finally gotten rid of him, but he paid another visit. Well, maybe it was a different wasp, it’s hard to tell. I also had a visit from a big, huge bumblebee and a spider ran past me on the deck railing. Grrr! Enough was enough. I grabbed my book and the wasp spray and went back indoors where it was safe from insects.

Yesterday, I talked to the woman from my video production company and she said if I embed the trailer into my website to use You Tube or MySpace to drive the hits up and increase my visibility on the search engines. I originally had used You Tube on my website, but I didn’t like how it looked after the video played. It shrunk my screen and brought up a whole bunch of other miniature images for people to click on. Veoh has a more aesthetically pleasing screen at the end and it’s bigger, so I went with them. I guess maybe I’ll be changing that back this afternoon. If you’d like to check out the bigger screen version, visit the Midnight Video page on my website.

Oh! Speaking of the website, I accidentally updated my Up Next page–I was going to wait till closer to the release of IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR–but decided not to take it down, so if you’d like to see what’s next, take a look.

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Freedom?

Saturday, May 26th, 2007

Happy Saturday, y’all!

This is my first “free” weekend and I’m all excited about it. Of course, since it’s my first free weekend since last fall, I have half a gazillion things to do. After I logoff here, I have to go get my hair cut, then I have an appointment this afternoon for an oil change. Since I hit my mileage about 6 weeks ago, I definitely couldn’t put this off. In between the two, I’m going to try to squeeze in a little furniture shopping. I desperately need a coffee table, something that became apparent while I was trying to work on this book and the couch was covered with books and papers.

Whew! I’m getting tired just thinking about my schedule for the day. It doesn’t help that I loathe shopping–unless it’s online–and that I hate sitting while they do car stuff. My one hope is that the place is empty since it’s the holiday weekend and that I’ll get in and out fast.

The guy came and worked on the tree ring yesterday. I think he has all the ground work done and that all that’s left is putting the stones down. I think. I hope I’m right and that he can get it done before we get any rain. It’s going to look so good when it’s done. My mom was over yesterday and she hates the tree I have in my backyard. She thinks it’s ugly. Anyway, with just the groundwork done, she said that the tree was already looking much better. I told her just wait until the stones are up.

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Umbrella Misadventures

Friday, May 25th, 2007

It rained all day yesterday. When I arrived at work, I grabbed my umbrella out of the backseat of the car, opened the door, stuck the umbrella out, and tried to open it. It wouldn’t go up. Upon closer investigation, the metal shaft was partially broken above the slider thing that holds the spokes. I forced it over that break and held the umbrella above it as I got out of the car and got my bag. But as I close my car door, I hear a clatter. I look down and the curved handle of my umbrella had broken the rest of the way off and landed on the ground. I picked it up and kept going.

I knew closing the umbrella once I got inside the building was going to be a problem, but I figured I’d work it out–somehow. I was wrong. And as I fought with it, the jagged metal caught my finger and gave me a ragged slice just below my first knuckle. Good thing my tetanus shot is still current.

I tossed the umbrella and the broken off handle into the trash. I knew a lost cause and a potential health danger when I saw it.

It took a bandage to stop the bleeding and my finger is still pretty sore, but on the whole, it isn’t bad and it could have been much worse.

In other news, I received the cable and the new track-ball mouse that I ordered. Turned out that I ordered the wrong cable. Darn it! And the curve on the track ball mouse made my hand cramp up. There’s no way I can use it. I’ll have to exchange both. I think I’ll try that laser mouse thing. One of the computers I sometimes use at work has that and it’s pretty slick. One more thing on my To Do List which has now expanded to include an oil change as well as a haircut on Saturday, a trip to look for a coffee table and some end tables, and on Sunday, a trip to Ikea to pick up a table for scrapbooking and a shelving unit for the spare bedroom. Oh, yeah, and I have to work Monday because that’s one of the holidays I lost at the EDJ. I’m getting tired just thinking of it. :-)

The last couple of nights, Shona has been passing along a little bit of information. Very little, but some. She’s a character mentioned a couple of times in the book I just turned in. She’s a glass artist and I know absolutely nothing about that, which means if I do her story, I’m going to have to do a lot of research. Why don’t I ever get stories/characters that are easy to write?

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Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

I blogged over at 2B Read today about living a life of gratitude. It’s something I’m still working on because it definitely isn’t natural. :-) That’s actually kind of sad, but I’m going to keep trying.

After having a dangerously dry spring, the Twin Cities is suddenly getting storm after storm. It rained yesterday and some nasty weather went just to the north of me, it’s supposed to rain all day today, and tomorrow, and Saturday, and Monday. Well, you get the picture. I’m afraid I have to take the blame for this weather. You see, my retaining wall tree ring was supposed to be in by Friday afternoon–if it didn’t rain–and of course, that was the kiss of death for nice weather. I was really looking forward to getting the damn lily bulbs off my kitchen counter, too.

It was a fairly low key evening since the tornadoes stayed to the north. I caught up on a few more things I let slide while I was pushing to finish the WIP and I read another book. Yea!

I don’t have a long weekend. Unfortunately, I lost that holiday with the concessions we had to give to NWA. The only good thing is that no one else will be at work on Monday except for other employees in my union and it’s so nice when it’s quiet at work. I should be able to get a lot done without all the noise and interruptions.

Oops, sorry, I digressed. I meant to say that even though I only have a two-day weekend, I hope to get a lot accomplished. The top item on my agenda is finding a few pieces of furniture. I have a card table in the spare bedroom. :-( And I’m using a stepladder as a coffee/end table. I want real furniture so I could put the stepladder away. We’ll see how far I get. I loathe shopping, and that makes this tough for me.

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